Recently, the public has become increasingly concerned with disease and its transmission, and such, there is an increased awareness of the importance of cleansing and hygiene in general. For example, with respect to the transmission of E. coli in the food services industry, the rhinovirus in elementary schools, and nosocomial diseases within healthcare facilities, numerous studies have cited hand hygiene as an effective measure to guard against disease transmission. In response, the health care industry, the food services industry, and the hotel and travel industries have been forced to examine their protocols and procedures to ensure that their personnel are adopting hand sanitizing habits that are efficacious in the prevention of disease transmission.
In response, as an effort to provide sufficient opportunities for individuals to have access to soap and sanitizers, many institutions and industries have increased the number of installed dispensers to allow individuals to clean and sanitize their hands. And while the availability of soap and sanitizers has increased the opportunities for individuals to wash or sanitize their hands, there is still a lack of compliance with predetermined hand washing hygiene standards. Furthermore, in order to minimize the potential transmission of bacteria or viruses by hand washing, full compliance with hygiene standards must be observed, as the failure of one individual to properly sanitize his or her hands can negate the efforts of others who come in contact with such individuals.
In order to achieve the desired level of hygiene compliance, many institutions have employed hygiene compliance monitoring systems that include dispensers that are capable of tracking the usage of the dispenser for identified individuals. Unfortunately, for entities with a large number of existing dispensers already installed, which lack hygiene compliance monitoring functionality, it would require the complete replacement of those dispensers with new dispensers that have hygiene compliance features, which is costly, and in many circumstances unfeasible.
Therefore, there is a need for a hygiene compliance module that can be retrofit with previously installed dispensers to provide hygiene compliance monitoring features. In addition, there is a need for a hygiene compliance module that can be retrofit in a user-friendly manner with an existing dispenser to provide hygiene compliance monitoring functionality. Furthermore, there is a need for a hygiene compliance module that can be retrofit with previously installed dispensers and that is powered by the power source provided by the dispenser to which it is attached. There is also a need for a hygiene compliance module that when retrofit with a previously installed dispenser is enabled or disabled depending on whether the hygiene compliance module has been authenticated by the dispenser.